The Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU) is an auxiliary to the Southern Baptist Convention that was established in 1888. The Baptist Woman’s Missionary Union of Georgia (BWMU-GA) is an auxiliary to the Georgia Baptist Convention and also organized in the 1880s.

The WMU was founded to mobilize women to distribute missionary materials and to raise money for Southern Baptist missions around the world. On May 24, 1910, the BWMU-GA was granted a charter of incorporation by the Fulton Superior Court. In this petition, the BWMU-GA states that “The object of said incorporation is not for pecuniary gain, but for the purpose of awakening the interest and securing the co-operation of women, young people and children in the great work of upbuilding Christ’s kingdom on Earth through missionary effort, Christian education, colportage, publications, and for the execution of any Christian work outlined or endorsed by the Georgia Baptist Convention” (Box 19, Folder 1). The BWMU-GA has continued to support this mission through programming for both children and adults, the operation of Camp Pinnacle, publications, fundraising, and more. This collection is a significant source of information about Baptist women from the late nineteenth century to present day: what they were thinking about themselves, their communities, their country, and the world, as well as what they were doing about it.

The collection includes copies of the Mission Messenger, a publication of the WMU, from 1895 to 1921. The run of this publication spanned significant historical events such as the Spanish-American War, World War I, the Flu Pandemic of 1918, and the Women’s Suffrage Movement. The Mission Messenger also includes reports from Georgia missionaries around the world, demonstrating the influence of the state across the globe during that era. In the years after the Civil War, ministering to a diverse population was a priority for the Women’s Baptist Missionary Union, so this publication also provides unique insight into under-documented communities of the time. You may encounter outdated and potentially offensive language in the publication that represents the ethnocentric views of its time, especially when describing non-Western cultures.